


Somatic

by jukeboxhound



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Platonic Analogical - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 14:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14594943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: Sometimes Virgil is the common sense that Logan needs.





	Somatic

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning** for a very brief mention of accidental, non-serious self-harm.

It’s Virgil who finds Logan sitting very still in his ergonomic desk chair, feet shoulder-width apart on the floor, hands resting on his thighs with the nails on the left digging in a little too deeply to be casual. Logan doesn’t turn around when Virgil manifests at the doorway behind him, but the tension in his shoulders ratchets up another notch when Virgil moves to sit on the end of Logan's bed.

After several minutes pass and Virgil doesn’t move or speak, Logan grits out, “Why are you here?”

“Because you’re not doing so hot right now.”

“Not because, of all the others, you are the one most prepared for being personally attacked?"

There’s a few seconds of silence in which Logan’s heart seems to give a particularly hard thump before Virgil snorts. “Dad may be the best one of us at this touchy-feely crap, but no one knows defensive techniques like I do. And you, apparently.”

“I am _not defensive.”_

The desk lamp dims a little. On the ceiling, which Roman had painted long ago to look like one of NASA’s sprawling panoramic views, a little star in the Horsehead Nebula flares and then dies. It’s an egregious loss of control. Logan’s nails bite down a little more deeply; another tiny, twinkling star pops and goes out.

Virgil is just sitting on the bed silently. Logan still hasn’t turned around, but in the corner of his eye he can see the arm that Virgil is leaning back against, fingers splayed and pale against the navy-blue comforter. They disrupt the subtle geometric pattern woven into the comforter and a distant part of Logan’s mind is intrigued to note that the sight seems causally linked to some indefinable sensation of _tightening_ in his chest. He wants those fingers to disappear so the geometric pattern can properly reestablish its visual continuity. Better than reflecting on how the attempt to film the latest video ended, their own fabric of teamwork unraveled by ego and insult.

“Obviously I understand that each one of us operates as a function within a larger whole rather than as complete individuals unto ourselves,” Logan bites out. “However, that doesn’t seem to stop my…frustration…with the others’ apparent inability to _simply be reasonable_.”

Virgil doesn’t say anything. The lack of any push-back means Logan is stuck with this – this undefined mass in his ribcage that’s making it difficult to breathe at a normal pace or depth. “I am also well aware that even emotions follow their own internal sense of reasoning however irrational they may appear from the outside, shaped as they are by a truly incredible number and variety of factors that science still has yet to fully comprehend. My assumption of irrationality on their part is unfounded.”

Virgil remains silent.

“Well?” Logan finally turns his head just enough to be able to glare at Virgil past the rim of his glasses. “Don’t you have anything to say about how unreasonable _I’m_ being?”

“Pretty sure you don’t need anyone to do that,” Virgil says mildly. “It’s neither helpful nor true.”

“Not true? Then you, a complex embodiment of conflicting emotions and self-preservation instinct guided by an undeniable kind of logic in itself, however twisted, agree that my frustration over the others’ inability to behave as anything other than what their own natures demand is not itself irrational?”

Virgil doesn’t even blink. “I think you have a tendency to use truth both as a mirror for self-discovery and as a weapon, and sometimes you get those two things so mixed up that you end up slicing _yourself_ apart.”

“Metaphor,” Logan snaps.

“Personal experience,” Virgil murmurs. “What you see in your head seems so _logical_ and _obvious_ that you wonder how the fuck no one else sees it, and if they’d just stop being stupid for five fucking seconds then maybe they’d actually understand that, but no, they insist on being _reckless_.”  Virgil sits up so he can lean forward with his elbows on his bony knees, eyes hardly blinking. “And it’s like your brain gets stuck on this track of disbelief but you can’t find the brakes so it just keeps speeding up and going in circles until you’re not sure if they’re going to die of their own stupidity first or…or if you will.”

Logan stares back. Slowly, Virgil reaches out to lay a hand over one of Logan’s, but the first brush of Virgil’s fingers feels like a nail file rasping over Logan’s skin and he pulls his hand back with a sharp inhale. Another star fizzles out over their heads with a tiny hiss.

“Sorry, sorry, too soon.” Virgil bites his lip, something like uncertainty passing over his face for the first time, but he doesn’t look away.  “Hey, what’s the fifth number in the Fibonacci sequence?”

Logan blinks. “Starting at zero or one?”

“Uh, zero.”

“Three,” Logan says automatically. “What – “

“What’s the tenth?”

“Thirty-four. …Aah. I’m not having a panic attack, Virgil.”

“Maybe not, but you’re still getting a shit-ton of neurochemicals dumped into your part of the ‘scape and it probably feels like one of Roman’s sparklers going off in your head. If sparklers could be murderous and extremely literate.”

“You are an utterly confounding combination of both reason and – and _nonsense_ , I can’t even – “

Logan’s mouth snaps shut when he registers Virgil’s small, lopsided smile. The space between the end of the bed on which Virgil is sitting and the chair in which Logan sits, ramrod straight, somehow seems much larger and insurmountable than the mere three feet it actually is.

Virgil says so quietly, “I get it, I think. Even if my response is ‘fight or flight’ and yours is, like, mostly just fight.”

“ _Thank you_ , I am _well aware_ that I’m currently compromised – “

“You’re not compromised, Logan, you’re being _reductionist._ You know perfectly well that we’re all more than just a single trait in isolation – we wouldn’t be able to function at all as a team if we didn’t also have some overlap, which means that you getting all emotional sometimes is actually a good thing and it’d be far more efficient to just accept the reality and work with it rather than beating yourself up for not meeting a stupid ideal that isn’t true, _shouldn’t_ be true, and wouldn’t be useful to anyone anyway. Be angry just because it's okay to be mad, not because you’re feeling anger in the first place.”

Virgil looks as surprised by his own monologue as Logan feels, but his scowl indicates a stubborn conviction that makes Logan suspect any further protestations on his part will simply result in having his own rhetorical tools used against him. The thought should escalate his anger, but instead that undefined mass in his chest is simply...deflating.

“You’re _infuriating.”_

Virgil scrutinizes Logan's face through narrowed eyes for a few seconds before his body visibly relaxes. Logan hadn’t even noticed how tensed Virgil’s body had become until it suddenly isn’t. “And you’re a really smart moron sometimes.”

Logan finds himself copying the steady rise and fall of Virgil’s chest as he breathes, slightly accelerated but slow enough that the worst of that thick, choking emotion loosens its hold on Logan's diaphragm. After several minutes of silence have passed and his breathing is back to its own standard pattern, Logan asks, “The others?”

“Dad is hating himself for not being able to magically make everyone happy and Princey is trying to convince himself he’s right even though he also feels like shit for making you feel like shit,” Virgil answers promptly. For all of his uncaring attitude, Logan had quickly learned that Virgil's hyper-observance often made him a useful, if not unbiased, source of information. “I convinced them to wait outside because I figured everyone could use some space.”

Unwillingly, Logan’s gaze flickers up to the universe spattered across his ceiling and part of the walls, its stars and galaxies turning slowly in their orbits, and Virgil’s face breaks out into a smirk that makes the three feet between bed and chair appear suddenly normal again.

“Don’t you dare say anything to Patton,” Logan mutters without any heat.

Virgil – without actually making any sort of promise not to tell Patton about the accidental pun, _don’t think Logan doesn’t notice that little omission_ – shifts and scuffles around until he’s lying on Logan’s bed on one side, leaving plenty of space to be a clear invitation without the pressure of expectation, one arm curled under his head for a pillow. Then he closes his eyes like he’s actually capable of falling asleep in two-point-five seconds.

Logan takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out gently, and repeats until he no longer has to keep a mental count. He lifts his hands palms-up and flexes his fingers, wincing when a couple of knuckles crack. He rolls his shoulders and his neck cracks even more loudly.

“That’s disgusting,” Virgil comments without opening his eyes.

“Your face is disgusting,” Logan replies, because apparently he’s doomed to pick up on the others’ worst habits.

“Uranus is disgusting,” Virgil says with far too much innocence.

“You are never allowed in my room again.”

Virgil turns his face into his arm and his shoulders shake a little with silent laughter.

Shifting in his chair makes parts of Logan’s back and torso cramp up and he has to take his time moving, stretching out muscles that he hadn’t realized had gotten locked up so tightly. Eventually, however, he’s able to stand up with only a few extra pops of his spine (and only a little bit of stinging when the fabric of his slacks pulls over the skin that had been underneath his nails), cross that empty three-foot space, and ease himself down beside Virgil so that when Virgil slits open an eye, they’re face to face.

Logan mentally braces himself for Virgil to ask how he’s feeling, but instead Virgil reaches out and rests a few fingertips on Logan’s wrist. For some strange, whimsical reason Logan would’ve expected Virgil’s fingers to appear thin and breakable peeking out from the oversized sleeve of his hoodie, but instead they’re warm and - capable. Noticeably present without being oppressive or making Logan worry that he’ll accidentally snap them with his own carelessness.

(Even Logan recognizes that as a deeper metaphor.)

He watches Andromeda turn lazily over the curve of Virgil’s shoulder and finally gives himself permission to just...exist for a while.

…

Some indeterminate amount of time later, there are two soft _whooshes._ Logan opens an eye to see Patton unfolding the dark fleece blanket that usually lives at the foot of Logan’s bed while Roman critically examines the ceiling above. Patton smiles and wordlessly starts tucking the blanket over Logan and Virgil's legs; Roman conjures a brush tipped with starlight and, very carefully, starts repainting the first star.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](https://jukeboxmusicality.tumblr.com/).


End file.
